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Webber keen to earn spot on podium

Matthew Clayton

Daniel Ricciardo of Scuderia Toro Rosso drives during practice on Friday for the Australian Grand Prix. Photo: Wayne Taylor

Mark Webber remained cautiously optimistic of breaking his long-standing Australian Grand Prix hoodoo after finishing second to teammate Sebastian Vettel in formula one practice at Albert Park on Friday.

The 36-year-old Australian finished 0.264 seconds behind his three-times world champion teammate at Albert Park as Red Bull, the constructors' champion of the past three seasons, flexed its considerable muscle, with Vettel topping both 90-minute sessions.

Alarmingly for Webber and the rest of the field, Vettel's Friday-best time of 1 minute 25.908 seconds came on a lap 54 minutes into the afternoon session where he told race engineer Guillaume Rocquelin over the team radio that his supersoft Pirelli tyres were going off and that his KERS was not working at ''some stages of the lap''.

Webber had finished the earlier practice session in fifth place, 0.457 seconds behind his teammate, and despite a late spin at Turn 13, the Australian felt Red Bull had made strides in the afternoon practice from what Vettel described earlier this week as an ''inconclusive'' pre-season testing campaign.

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''Overall it's a pretty positive day for us, but there's areas for us to work on,'' Webber said after second practice.

''It wasn't a bad day, and we got through plenty of info. It's nice to have a bit of sun on circuit after [testing] in Barcelona with plenty of overcast conditions. We had to correlate plenty of information from Europe today and that went pretty well, but we still have a huge amount to go through tonight.''

Red Bull driver Mark Webber at Albert Park. Photo: Wayne Taylor

Webber finished fourth at Albert Park last year, his best result in 11 previous races at home, and is aiming to break his Melbourne jinx; Monza in Italy and Albert Park are the only circuits that have featured in every one of his F1 campaigns where he is yet to finish on the podium.

With Melbourne's capricious weather expected to play a part in the late Saturday afternoon qualifying session to set the grid for Sunday's 58-lap race, Webber said Red Bull needed to be prepared for every eventuality.

''Qualifying could be a bit of a mixed grid tomorrow given the conditions,'' he said.

''There's a lot of decisions when we're running on circuit in the next couple of days, and we need to get as many of those right to get the maximum result.''

Webber briefly took over top spot halfway through the afternoon session when he used the supersoft Pirelli tyre for the first time, the softer rubber thought to be worth an extra second per lap around the 5.303-kilometre Albert Park layout. Webber's effort was quickly put into perspective by Vettel who, after being blocked by the Williams of Pastor Maldonado on his first attempt on the faster rubber, produced his session-best time on his next lap.

It was a lower-key beginning to Daniel Ricciardo's second home grand prix, with the 23-year-old West Australian finishing the afternoon session in 14th place after being 18th in the earlier practice.

Ricciardo was two-tenths of a second behind Toro Rosso teammate Jean-Eric Vergne and 3.758 seconds slower than Vettel's benchmark time in opening practice, and was over two seconds slower than his time in the equivalent session a year ago, raising fears that Toro Rosso may have slipped further behind the midfield teams it struggled to keep pace with in the back-end of the 2012 season.

He was three-tenths of a second quicker than his teammate in the afternoon, his best lap of 1:28.627 over 2½ seconds behind Vettel's searing pace.

Ricciardo was the first driver out of pit lane and the first to record a flying lap in a practice session this season, but quickly fell down the order as the front-runners started producing meaningful lap times after the halfway point of the 90-minute session.

The Toro Rosso driver finished ninth in his maiden Melbourne race last year after a first-corner accident relegated him to the back of the field.